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Dear Someone,

Thank you for the Christmas card.
I recognised the hand writing on the envelope when I saw it.
I smiled.
The missus mentioned when I came home from work that I had a Christmas card come through the post. Just like it was not normal practice anymore.
Well, to be honest, it’s not so normal practice anymore. Technology has changed things so much that when I write out my Christmas and birthday cards, I feel old fashioned.
That’s the way it is. Even to the extent that although I remain a stickler for tradition and send out birthday and Christmas cards when they should be sent, I don’t sometimes get either by return anymore. In some cases I don’t get recognised at all. Even with Christmas not requiring the same level of date specific memory; if I’m lucky enough to be remembered I may receive a text message. I suppose that’s better than nothing. And I should be grateful, except it’s not my way.
Adding to that, my own attention to detail requires that I select and use a picture postage stamp to stick onto the front of the envelope.
To the receiver it would look as if someone at the sending end cared enough about the appearance of that envelope. Further still, if studied to any degree of consideration, that picture postage stamp should by its appearance highlight that it was specifically chosen and not seasonally relevant to, for example: Christmas.

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Definitely not Christmas.
The seasonally available Christmas picture postage stamps look to have been designed by and for people of barely infant school age. They never improve.
Precisely why they are the one type of picture postage stamp I absolutely avoid buying.
And so definitely the stamps that I insist on using would be any one of many previously available other picture stamps that the Post Office would have released at any time in its history. The picture stamp itself could have been released for public sale months, years, or even decades before.
The secret here being that the picture postage stamp, if displaying a 1^st symbol or a 2^nd symbol, is usable at any time in the future. But because it’s a first or a second class, there’s no monetary value to be added in order to compensate for today’s postage rate.

I know there is also a separate issue about which would make the picture postage stamp used then virtually a waste of time and effort, and waste of stamp too, ultimately.
Who would think to look twice at the postage stamp when all that matters at the time is getting the envelope open.
And there lies the other issue. These days the matter of opening a letter probably fails to express the finesse it deserves. I mean, out of who – if
they can’t be bothered to send a letter or card in the post in the first
place would be bothered to open an envelope to avoid jagged edges and roughly ripped tops.

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Luckily for me, the almost obsessive desire to make an envelope look more appealing by adding that picture stamp is not wasted, no matter what the recipient notices, or not.
I know what effort I put into it so I feel content with that effort. If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.

So yes, it’s nice to get a letter or card the old way.
That obviously would include the postcard too in terms of post through the door.
Personally (when out and about), I do like to find the ideal postcard to send from a foreign country. Better still, stick the postage stamp from that country onto it. So far, I’ve been lucky from those countries in that all the stamps available have been picture postage stamps. That said, so far I’ve not been to a country where there is a choice between picture or non-picture. If there were I’d still make sure it was carefully chosen. There has been the odd occasion whereby I wasn’t impressed by the stamp offered and so then opted for a more preferable stamp.

But what about (if on holiday) sending pictures electronically to negate the need for postcards altogether? I could showpiece the art of vanity, or self-importance, against a landscape backdrop, just like a selfie.
No, that’s not my way. People get a postcard whether they like it or not.

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Electronically sent photo’s works as an added bonus mind you. There’s nothing wrong with sending photos from a tech device as a method of enhancing the experience of receiving a greeting. As a practice it works. And it’s easy to select more appropriate pictures that would be otherwise unavailable.
Still, because I’m not interested in receiving arrogant pictures by return, pictures for example of people pouting and being stupid; my snap shots are therefore carefully chosen. They are chosen to hopefully avoid having to receive any pictures by return.
Some may call the pictures that I send boring. Others may call them a welcome bonus to the postcard if for no other reason than the pictures sent electronically are more or less instant, whereas the postcard could take days or weeks to get from A to B.

I do send electronic pictures to certain folk. Pictures I think they may appreciate if trying to imagine what the place where they were sent from is like.
As an eager believer of posting greetings one way or the other, or both even, the added ability now to send videos raises the bar even higher.
I know though that the email (or text message) containing those pictures or videos has only a limited time appeal.
Ages in the writing and then the editing to boot. Send the whole message into cyberspace and don’t expect to receive anything by way of reply because that isn’t the point behind the exercise.

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Off through frequency transmit via telephone mast the pictures get sent, all with a dedicated description accompanying each one to ensure the recipient gets the whole picture – as it were.
Best of all, that message is only going where I want it to go.

There’ll be no pictures or accompanying broken English going onto a social media platform so the whole world can see.
That’s for sure.
There’s too much in the way of pictures accompanied by useless and degrading, half thought about single lines of text without any grammar what-so-ever.
How vane would it be to include pictures of us, lounging on a beach for instance. If I were to indulge in using those fantasy laden zones of self-importance, there would be a sure result; I may get a reply.
An ill-conceived message of – usually congratulations, or sympathy, or worse still a yellow face symbol splattered picture message from someone in the friends list who, (and if accumulating the same amount of friends as most users), had never been met before and didn’t even know. It’s not the message I want to convey. That’s not what I want. But then my friends list only consists of people I genuinely know.

Just as with e-mails, a text message received joins the ever growing list which filters its way down, or up the screen until it’s disappeared altogether.

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And that of course is one of the downfalls of an electronic message. It’s gone sometimes within minutes, or hours, as the next one follows on through and pushes the message further and further out of sight. Not forgetting of course that almost purely because of this, the original message is only as good as when it is read. That said, a birthday greeting by text (because it’s that message or nothing) does get read more than one time in one sitting – like it’s unbelievable. Or blink and you’ll miss it.
Funny that. The text message greeting is even more unbelievable than a card when you look at it like that. It takes a moment or two to create and lasts for a moment or two. Like maybe it was too much trouble to think about it in the first place. Or from another angle, why should I have been such an encumbrance on their time? After all, these days it looks like the social ‘in your face’ platforms have the edge over a simple text message, or an even more complicated greetings card.
Personally, I prefer to stick with the card format as a mainstay method of messaging with regard to certain events.
There again, how long will it be before I relent and discredit the written format on paper in favour of electronic applications only, I wonder?
I don’t want to think about it.
It surely will happen and here’s why: you can’t run water uphill. Whilst I’m not trying to force a way by using it, I could get discouraged – eventually, if it doesn’t work both ways.

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My efforts to communicate with others in what I think to be the best way just doesn’t seem to have the same impact anymore. It’s even possible that others may have discredited the written form already and it is for me to find out. And once I have worked out who that is, I may just stop communicating altogether by way of writing.
I don’t think people can be bothered anymore, some people anyway. They simply don’t care whether you are out and about and where that may be and maybe the thought of wishing someone good tidings, to them is more of an encumbrance on their time. I don’t know. It’s a mystery.
How many times have I sent out a message only for there to be zero reply of any nature. It’s not that I expect a reply, as I am long since settled with that kind of isolation when sending out proper messages. It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that every time someone sends a message to me, I do go to the bother of sending a reply back. It could be a simple answer by way of reply, or better for them some form of positive bounce to the original massage.
Well, I guess ignoring messages may even be a practice I employ myself in the future. The old saying ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ is not one that I approve of in a lot of circumstances. Sometimes however it may be the best way.
What is the point in spending time and effort writing, sending, contacting, when all the time (and because their own efforts are non-existent) they are more interested in posting pictures of how they indulged in their own chosen hobby, or how they managed to look like the village idiot, especially for that photo being taken at the time.

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As a consequence of being connected to these social platforms it wouldn’t have been such a surprise when relaxing at home during an evening to hear the cell phone chirp up.
The chances are the cell phone didn’t come to life all of a sudden for a Greeting’s message at all. If it ever solely was, it’s not the purpose behind those platforms anymore. So, low and behold, somebody in the contacts list just had the desire to put a photo of either themselves, or one of their chosen pieces of hobby hardware with them in it, or on it, or something else they deemed worthy of including, into cyberspace. Seemingly without care or distraction as to who in the world would see it and how they may interpret it.
Or, what could be better than a splurgy pout with over make-up, or worse still, over made-up to plasticise the appearance into that of a toy doll. Act like a moral less clown to rub people’s noses in it.
I disabled (except for family What is appl) the social platform method of notification on my cell phone. I don’t want to know.

Well, that’s the latest tech message with attached photo all in one. There was no grammar incorporated in the latest tech message received, at least from those that aren’t specifically aware of my appreciation of proper English.

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The single sentence seems to suffice in nearly all cases. Did anyone learn anything in English classes at school of late? Was it a complete waste of time putting English into the education curriculum? In fact, may it just be the case that in the future, some young folk simply won’t understand the principle of writing to someone, be it the form of a greetings card or a letter, or even writing at all.
That in my view would be a lost generation.
But it’s too late anyway. It gets worse.
Writing has stopped altogether in some cases, only to be replaced by an even simpler and more idle form of communicating like the yellow picture face.

Speaking for myself, the art of communicating with people in a written format is central to human understanding.
Sadly, it’s all gone wrong.
For example: in a position of power at place of work it became realised in very quick order that a flippantly typed email could and would be construed incorrectly.
Being on the defensive just because words of truth were read as words of threat makes for an unfortunate and hostile relationship where it was only ever meant as a view.
Not only do people not understand how to write properly, they don’t know how to read either. It’s just like people want to see malice.

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I’ve had to remind people on several occasions that there is more than one way of reading text. All this before I decided that one particular platform where I added some words of wisdom would for me become largely read only, or direct answer only in order to avoid repeated swipes at what was only ever intended to be thinking aloud, so to speak.
It’s quite distressing to realise that an individual reading something put in writing by myself is unable to read it for how it was written and instead interpret it purely from a menacing angle.
Along as within emails, it’s not possible to show facial or any other type of expressions such as voice tones etc, and therefore the writing can’t require a person’s caring side to be interpreted anywhere within it. The context must be to the point and no more. What a bummer!
I’m not that cold a person.

I can’t of course pretend to be completely innocent to the function and use of technology (including text messaging and platform messaging) within the social environment. It’s a simple fact of life these days that if you don’t keep up then it’s a human flaw. You have to keep up to speed as much as you can. If I was not available in the invisible atmospheric static of radio wave technology I wouldn’t hear from anyone at all, except from old timers like us.
So yes, there’s always a flip side; I would be lost without it. I myself have a Face story page. I also have an Instant tele gram page.

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But then there’s a flip side to the flip side too, because although I have subscribed to these social platforms, I don’t however put anything on them. That said, I have used the messaging service (hidden away as a private contact use) precisely for conversational talk. Other than that they are merely subscribed to in order to see what other people use them for.
A Face story page gives a quite clear insight into the vanity and unconsidered attention of multiple generations. Seemingly: how can you make yourself appear in the eyes of the world.
Do you lack stardom? Well here’s your chance.
Actually, do you know what? Forget it. If it came to a choice whereby it’s that way or none, wouldn’t it be better not that way?
So what other reason for it? You wouldn’t post your next business meeting on a Face story page. That would be ridiculous.
OK, it’s true, I have seen some inspiring stuff on a Face story page. There’s companies out there that use it for advertising purposes. I’ve watched the top of the range 4×4 from the most iconic utility vehicle brand drive up a thousand steps in China. That was amazing. I added a ‘Like’ for that when I saw it.
It didn’t however change my mind to the using of it, or them as a platform to add to. I simply don’t use them.

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So what then of an Instant tele gram as a platform? That’s a good one is it not? It’s very useful for adding photos and quick short descriptions of a recent event. And it’s more private. You have to be added to the subscribers list to be able to see what’s going on.
Yeah but, isn’t that the same as a Face story page?
OK, I’m not complaining here, I am after all named as a ‘friend’, or ‘follower’ to some people on both accounts, believe it or not.
However, it’s quite hard to accept when looking into the profiles of a few people on a Face story page, of who I thought I was one of the closest friends they have, only to find out that they have another 500 friends out there who are all more important. Lots of those live in countries on the other side of the world.
It’s not solely a result of this, or because of it even, that I configured my own internet wide blog.
Now that is different.
Anyone could have one if they chose.

You could think that maybe (as by now you would know my take on the world of social media versus normal forms of correspondence) I had set up my blog purely in defiance of these other platforms. A clash of presumed ideals. But no. That wasn’t the case.
There is only one reason for it.
I love writing.

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The blog caters for my desire to write properly and not give up on one of the most (if not the most) important forms of communication. Definitively it completely up ends the other types of platforms out there in its ability to enable creative remarks.
Whether my written stories are good, or rubbish, is completely irrelevant. I had to find a way of writing my mind.
You see, my mind was so full of stories that I couldn’t find the space in there to embrace anything else that would be more taxing to the brain power than say … simply riding a bicycle for instance.
Anyone can ride a bicycle. I rode to work and back for umpteen years in the harshest of conditions at all times of day and night. It was easy. In terms of miles, I have cycled the whole way around the planet Earth globe, and more besides.
I have proved to myself that I can do that and get onto one at any time – even though I haven’t ridden a bicycle to work for fifteen years now. Frankly, the thought of riding a bicycle to work along the A350 and the A354 (or not as in my case) is a complete no brainer.

Looking into cyber reality, there had to be a way via this technology to release a potential.
There is certainly more that I would like to learn, in my own computing potential.
In the end it was simple really: create a potential to enable one.

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I decided I wanted to learn music, or something. A foreign language maybe. Trouble was, there wasn’t enough capacity up there in the computing department to allow for all of which was already up there plus more to be added.
Something had to give.
To do this I settled on a blog format to highlight my lifelong diary in bit sized portions. I wanted my stories to be in proper writing.
I had to learn to type to do this.
Huh, what’s to learn?
Everyone does it differently. I have over the years become slightly quicker at typing.
There’s always a ton of mistakes to edit, but that’s par for the course.
I spend as much time editing as I do writing. And I have come to the conclusion that if typing a certain way is how you get by, then learning to type at incredible speeds is purely a talent, one which is enjoyed only by those that were born with those skills. Touch typing is an art and a talent. One that I don’t possess.
But now I am happy.
I have created the start of something that I can add to whenever I see fit. The best part about it is that for the reader, the writing doesn’t disappear following the insertion of an updated story.

Sadly, it just doesn’t fit into today’s ideals, as perceived by reviewers reviews of my blog site so far (or one of them at any rate.)

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So here’s a secret: there’s one very crucial point of interest with my blog: it contains very few pictures.
OK, the Homepage does include one visible picture, and some downloaded ‘free to use’ pictures from the internet, which don’t show unless with a click onto any link on that page a picture can then be seen They are just for visual effect in order to showcase the subjects included.
So if this written tale is the first story to be read from my blog, and because it sits at the top of the list on the ‘Navigate’ page, entitled ‘Climbing Mountains’, there’s a good chance that no more stories will be read.

There you have it: there’s no pictures here to look at. It’s all writing.
The thing is, because I chose this way to express things, and it was for a very good reason in that it allows me to write it all down and free up my mind a bit, I therefore don’t require people to read it. That isn’t the point behind its conception.

I decided to release the access information for my blog site to two people only so far: family members.
The blog platform itself is a clever piece of technology in that it has its own statistics information, or URL if you like. That part of it is a bit vague and conformingly basic, but it comes with the plan I pay for. There’s option for more complex results at more expense. I don’t need it. At a glance I can see if the blog has attracted any readers at all; shown in the form of a simple bar chart. Not only that, I can see if it was visited more than once.

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Obviously it is basic, there are no details as to who and from where. Those details simply aren’t available.
The feedback after limited release was poor. The statistics URL did show some limited activity.
Obviously because of the family ties, the actual feedback wasn’t through the blog ‘Contact’ page, it was by word of mouth. And as poor as some of it was, I wasn’t offended.
This is my blog. More to the point, it has allowed me to connect with the whole world without giving away any information as to who I am.

In the stories I could even look like an idiot myself, but I won’t feel like one. I was brave enough to tell everyone about it. I was as honest as I could be. I haven’t tried to plasticise and alter the reality.
Purely because any reader wouldn’t (unless they knew me and knew that it was my blog written by me) know who I was, they therefore wouldn’t know any of those also mentioned.
From the two contacts that I released the information to, one issued a pleasing seal of approval.
It could have been embarrassing. But only in the way I chose to write.

It’s funny how that now with the blog access data potentially available to more people (by way of word of mouth) than just those who do know of its existence, the statistics URL page shows no more information
what-so-ever.

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The blog obviously doesn’t hit the spot enough to warrant more readers than the two that have access freely to it. Without doubt it is of little interest to anyone other than myself.
Am I bothered? No. The platform has allowed me to express my tales through the journey of life and rather than have them cluttering up my mind busting to get out to an audience, they don’t have to anymore.
The audience isn’t interested.
It has been noted that these days, a story to be told with a point does rarely hit the spot. No one seems interested in someone else’s experience, or adventures, or retraceable journey’s.

With reference to the lack of information on the statistics URL, I can’t read too much into that because I don’t have this platform to impose it on anyone. Differing to the other social platforms it allows me to write what I want and to lay it down as story memories. It’s there to read for anyone with an interest in reading it. People’s cell phones won’t chirp up every time I open it and add to it.
There’s a voluntary code of entry.
I suppose you could say that about all of those social media outlets. Save for one major difference: Mine is one site of interest by one author. There is no thread of countless others who wish to share an opinion.

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Therefore: it’s not like ‘oh, there goes the phone again, I wonder which one of my 500 friends added something.’
It’s horses for courses.
Better the reader know who I am, otherwise there wouldn’t be the knowledge in knowing the character involved.
Hang on a minute though. Doesn’t that fly in the face of the fact that I want it to be unrelated to anyone that could be known?
Well yes it does a bit. But I think that’s the beauty of it.
Cleverly, or not (but definitely on purpose), I chose to alter the names of people involved. The blog takes on the format of ancient Greece when it comes to names. There’s mention of all manner of life stories and adventures and work related stuff too. In short, you couldn’t attribute any of the stories to anyone at all, it was just someone.
This in itself (because it’s written like fiction when all the time it actually isn’t) would apply to anyone who mistakenly managed to access it because it is just so random.
The blog is worldwide and yet – it’s private.
If a reader didn’t know me it would be like reading a fiction book.
Then there’s the people that do know me and do know that the blog is written by me. And that lets the cat out of the bag in a way.
But in another way it doesn’t.
The secret behind my blog is: If you want to know what’s been going on in my life (because you know me and can put a face to the Ancient Greek name) then you may be happy to read it, otherwise it’s just another tale.
There’s billions of fiction reading books out there so why should mine be any worse than a lot of others.

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The other verbal feedback I received was disappointing to say the least. But not disrupting in any way. I have to take the good with the bad, that’s what feedback is all about. Constructive criticism is (if not smilingly approved of in the first instance) much appreciated if by applying I can see a way to improve.
Except there was one problem with feedback summary number two. One that despite my acceptance of all reviews, was simply pretty pointless to the whole point of the blog in the first place.
I shouldn’t be too harsh I suppose. But here’s the point – to date I have deliberately avoided ‘pictures.’
Yes, that’s right! There are no pictures.
Summary number two places particular emphasis on the fact that it is all writing and no pictures.
Ugh! That’s the whole point of it!
I could put all manner of pictures in and blow the disguise right out of the water.
The blog is not intended to stay that way however. I have a concept in mind whereby I intend to summarise places abroad that have been visited.
That in itself will give to the reader who insists on pictures something to look at. And that is precisely why the pages that will involve pictures won’t have the same story telling format as those that make up the rest of the blog.

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The pictures will be landscapes. Photos of airports maybe. Street scenes, life in whatever village or town it may concern. Wildlife even.
But definitely not me.
That part of the blog will look like pages of postcards with some descriptions.
Maybe the pictures will be too boring that for the reader who insists on pictures they then can’t even be bothered to look at them. Probably assuring themselves that they could do better. Would they be just pointless pictures as a result?
Well it depends who you are I suppose.

Today –
So here and now, your greetings card sits proudly on the book shelf. Those cards still matter to me.
Better still that there is an update inside.

It has been a difficult year for sure. Work really brassed lots of workers off where I am. We obviously had to carry on working right through lockdown. Unfortunately we were never recognised for going that extra mile.
Worse still, those staff working from home seem to get more recognition than those of us who can’t work from home.

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We have stuck rigidly to the prescribed rules and regulations concerning Covid. In early days there was free interpretation of the rules and regulations that required: act first, think later. In one such circumstance a colleague from work was there at work with a very bad cold. Obviously I confronted him about it and just got the usual non-conforming shrug of the shoulders in return. Further discussions with the so called Health and Safety representative saw me go home in a huff because spreading colds about in April was pretty selfish. To make matters worse, I wasn’t called back into work, but instead given seven days off, whilst the colleague with the cold stayed at work.
It was mad. But I did get a week off in brilliant springtime weather, sanctioned entirely by the company themselves.
Staying within the rules has meant that some everyday tasks (not previously considered twice) then turning into a weekly event. So shopping locally was in and travel was out.

Sadly I haven’t been able to take a look at the cruise ships anchored out to sea where you are. We have regulated ourselves to essential travel only, unlike loads of people. Some of those being neighbours, whose infuriatingly inconsiderate behaviour isn’t tolerated particularly well by myself.
I do often think and reminisce about the time spent there where you are, in a gardening aspect. It often occurs as to how the garden may have changed over the years.

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When travel restrictions ease I have a desire to head your way (as invited) for an unrestricted travel trip. Hopefully we will all be allowed to travel again (non-essentially) soon. I would like to see how your garden has taken shape and also take a look at those cruise ships on the water out there. So fingers crossed and all that. Although I have failed to make it down there over recent years, I do do have every intention of doing so.

Best regards.

PS: I’ve had a rethink now. I’ll be adding pictures from now on. This is my twenty fourth story out of twenty five.
In retrospect, after adding some relative detail photos in my twenty fifth story, it seemed like a good idea – sometimes.